Has anyone used a Raspberry PI as a bridge to print from Serial port on Mac

[Corey986]

Now that my Mac 128k is up and running, I am now up to my next challenge.  

How do I get it to print on my newer Postscript capable HP Laserprinter now that HP only ships printers that have USB and Network connectivity.  

Was thinking there has to be a way to use Raspberry Pi to do this by using a serial adapter on the PI and plugging the Printer into the PI.

Anyone done this yet? Or am I starting from scratch here?

Thanks,
Corey

 

[Themk]

Your HP accepts raw PostScript data on TCP/IP port 9100. What you will need to do in a nutshell is

* Capture the PostScript output from the LaserWriter extention

* Insert the data into your printer.

How you do that is up to you, but I would think the RPi could act as the other end of a serial connection, and then take the PostScript sent to it, and then insert it to your printer using its port 9100.

 

[Corey986]

So I have a spare lantronix UDS 10 box that can send data from a serial port to an IP port.  Do you think that could work?

 

[Themk]

Possibly it could work. I have no knowlege of that device, but it sounds plausible.

 

[Corey986]

Ok, now the big question... Is the DB9 on the back of the Mac 128K for printer (and modem) a standard RS232?  I don't think it is, so what kind of cable should I be looking for?  If not is there a link to pin outs so I can make a cable?

 

[Themk]

It is controlled by the Zilog SCC, which is capable of operating in RS-422 mode for LocalTalk, or standard RS-232 mode for other peripherals.

 

[Corey986]

So a regular 9 pin serial null modem cable will work?

 

[Themk]

I think so. I'm not totally sure though.

 

[joethezombie]

Well, I found this on the internet so it must be true:

http://www.jneuhaus.com/mac_old.html

Not quite applicable here, but I did make myself a cable to print from my 128k to my ImageWriter II:

https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/25980-printer-cable-for-128k-or-512k-mac-de9-to-minidin8/

 

[Corey986]

I found an Apple service manual and it is different than a standard RS232 even in RS232 mode. I will make a conversion cable to test this out tomorrow.

Quick question about the driver. Is the postscript driver on the standard Mac OS 1.1 macwrite disk?

Thanks,

Corey

 

[Themk]

Does it have the LaserWriter extention? Then yes. If it has no LaserWriter extention, then no it doesn't have the driver. .

 

[NJRoadfan]

Does the Macintosh 128k even have enough RAM to run any sort of LaserWriter driver? By default it requires LocalTalk, which might not run on a 128k.

 

[Themk]

The first LaserWriter had Serial, so I would think the original extention should work.

 

[Corey986]

Doing a little history research, I'm going to need at least OS 2.1 or 3.x since my 1.1 disks predate the LaserWriter.

I guess this will have to wait till I buy an SD card adapter so I can download newer software onto 3.5 floppies. Since I'm new to vintage Macs I only have a couple CFFA3000 adapters for my Apple II's and a SCSI adapter I use with my Kurzweil. I guess I can prove the idea out by using a modern Mac setup to print to a serial LaserWriter and a USB serial adapter.

 

[cbmeeks]

FYI, my wife won a new (modern, 2016) laser printer at an office party a few months ago.  It was made by Lexmark (I can get the exact model if interested).  Anyway, it's an awesome printer supporting networking (wired) and USB.  But what really surprised me is that it also had an old-school an IEEE 1284 36-pin Centronics printer port!  I couldn't believe it.  But I guess there's still a lot of old business machines out there without network or USB.

Anyway, I wonder if it would be easier to get one of those running on a vintage Mac than running a RPi/Linux layer in between?

Just a thought.